The motorized stage is definitely looking like a good idea. There are also the problems of managing lighting and camera settings to get better recognition of the laser line (a focused laser line is still fuzzy if overexposed. I've taken to using just the end of the line, where it's dimmer).

For the cost of building the stage plus the reduced learning curve, I'm starting to think already about finding a cheap projector.

Before spending more money, I think I need to spend some more time learning. I haven't even been to the DAVID forums yet.

You say SL is really easy. Easy relative to using the laser, or just plain easy?

I may be able to get my wife to split the cost on a fully functional unit. These things seem too useful to dedicate solely to scanning, and she may be tired of sharing her laptop screen for small presentations she sometimes does.

I'll have to do some further reading to see what characteristics other than cost are important.

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__my mixed bag blog || aka --> [http] || ___ so 3D printing is everywhere ... dont worry, hospitals can now 3Dprint body parts, they will charge you $1million excluding surgical fees ... you will die paying your debts. thats their aim ___ if every patent expires tomorrow, everybody will surely get a 3dprinter and make EVERYTHING ! ____ there is a "DIY-DTG" t shirt printing forum, you can mod an EPSON printer to PRINT like a pro. ___ CNCzone? overly commercialized it seems ___ my country? they will be taxing you for every cm of road you use and track you to your grave using GPS and its government authorized, now they will fire all the traffic wardens instead.___ EEVBLOG? there is only 1 way to do things --> take it apart like a pro

... my children and wife were a bit anxious to wreck gaming figures, so asked, if I can make them some copies for use while 'storing' the originals.

Scanned one figure with an old dental-scanner (but could have done this with David-Laserscanner too), edited and cleaned it in David and ordered 4 in different colours/materials from shapeways (22€ complete with shipping and tax)

The figures and scanning+printing results can be seen here (and in the following posts): [forums.reprap.org]

anything is better than fabscan and the HBBR scanner. I spent 300$ knowing it was still in development, you are lucky to scan a real object more than 10% without distortion. I'm actually disappointed with it and any ability of it to be used to do a single 360deg scan.

I am also trying the kinect scanner and will post details on that soon.

if you want reliability and fast setup with little post processing your best bet for under 600$ is the Roland 3d scanners. they go on and off ebay on occasion. new they were about 1400-2600$. I really wish i had not sold mine years ago. it was a little slow, but very very accurate.

There is a difference between theoretical accuracy,and real performance of any 3d scanner. guess you get what you pay for in the end....

... I've got a small Acer K11 LED beamer and modified Logitech pro 9000 webcam and 3D-printed mounting parts ... and combined them with some of my old gear - for scanning of small parts more compact than the setup with the Casio beamer

Here the setup with two LED spotlights (red and white) and a tilt/pan-table - see the 1 Euro coin in the small calibration corner for size comparison: